In praise of ... the Royal Festival Hall

The innovative British concert halls of recent years have gone up in places such as Birmingham, Cardiff, Gateshead and Manchester. Now it is London's turn, though not in the form of a new building but of a familiar old one seen anew through fresh eyes. It is two years since the Royal Festival Hall, increasingly shabby and cluttered in comparison with its original Festival of Britain incarnation, closed its doors for a £111m refit. On Friday the hall reopens with 48 hours of free events, followed by a first-night gala on Monday.

The auditorium has been almost wholly remade in accordance with the 1951 designs, with the stage area opened up to allow more flexibility for differing performance needs, the whole thing essentially recognisable as a smartened-up version of the old hall. More striking changes have been made in the foyers and public spaces, with all the old offices shifted to a new extension building next to the railway and most of the accumulated shops moved out of the main hall to new spaces too. The whole emphasis is on the rediscovery and opening up of a public building whose enriched modernism is at the service of a very edifying and democratic purpose.

With not an executive box in sight, the renovated hall is the antithesis of the new Wembley's corporate triumphalism. A definitive verdict on the South Bank refurbishment must await concerts and crowds, but the initial impression from a press tour of the Festival Hall is akin to that of an old-master painting lovingly restored to its original glory.